It’s Thursday, which means it’s time to think back on three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A delivery guy rides a Hoverboard while pushing his empty lunch cart back to the restaurant.

2. I have an appointment in the late afternoon that puts me outside just at sunset. The sky is purple and pink and orange and lovely.

3. I see the bus turn onto the block while I’m still on the other side of the cross street. I wave, because that’s what you do when you just want to get home, and in a rare move, the bus driver pulls over to the stop, despite his green light, to wait for me.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this past week?

Three beautiful things from this past week:

1. Susan invites me to join their family for the annual tuba concert at the Kennedy Center. This year, it’s held in the concert hall, rather than the atrium, which means we are literally surrounded by tubas, sousaphones, and euphoniums on all sides. Also, it’s very exciting when they ask kids in the audience to help out with “Jingle Bells” and their daughter heads up on stage.

2. My coworker and I brave the cold to go out for a bowl of soup and to catch up on how our holiday prep is going.

3. My Secret Santa (arranged by The Broke & The Bookish) package arrived and is full of anticipatory pleasure: it contains a dozen wrapped items for me to open over the coming days. (I’ll share them all with you later on…) Thanks, Gina, for so much fun!

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world recently?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Our Christmas party went well: no one showed up on time; people brought — and left — cookies; and folks seemed to have a good time. Plus, I had an enthusiastic young assistant helping me hang ornaments on the tree. She got the bottom edge of the tree thoroughly decorated!

2. The first clementines of the season are so sweet.

3. Rudi, who is an extrovert, has lots of friends, who are very kind and invite him to lots of events. I am an introvert and prefer only to attend parties where I already know the people. For this past week’s party, we agree that he’ll go by himself and I’ll swing by at the end and pick him up on my way home from the office. That way, I only had to stay for 15 minutes, but it didn’t seem rude my not joining him.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A jeep drives past with colorful lights on its roof rack.

2. Everyone’s enthusiastic responses to the Virtual Advent Tour. You all rock!

3. I know from my washing method of peanut butter jars that the easiest way to empty out my ancient jar of Fluff is to pour the cocoa into it, tightly close the lid, and shake it around (over the sink). A scrape of the the spoon for the stubborn bits, and I can empty it back into my cup.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world recently?

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving (or just a wonderful Thursday if you’re located elsewhere). Rudi and I drove up to spend the holiday with my folks, and we stuffed ourselves full of doughnuts, turkey, stuffing, rolls, vegetables, and pie. We watched the parade, counted our blessings, shared stories of loved ones not with us this year, and enjoyed each other’s company. (I also had two long naps, which means I missed most of the parade and most of the Disney special. Oops.).

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. When she phoned yesterday to check on our drive’s progress, my mom reminded us about one of their alternate routes north, which was far less trafficked than the Garden State Parkway would have been. (Don’t worry; we hit plenty in both Maryland and in Connecticut.)

2. We decided to stop for supper at Modern Apizza, but when we pulled up, we could see the crowd spilling out of the vestibule and onto the sidewalk. We are nothing if not devoted to our pizza, though, so just pulled out all our warm gear and prepared to wait. Turns out that there were two large parties waiting to be accommodated, and we were able to walk right in and sit down at a booth. (We finished our meal and left before either group was seated.)

3. Thanksgiving is one of the days when my folks light a fire first thing in the morning and then it keeps burning all day. I like to spend parts of the day curled up on the hearth.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world recently?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A new poem, “The Health of Us,” by poetry goddess Claudia Rankine.

2. My coworkers and I were fast off the mark when an email announced to the entire building that there were leftovers available for lunch. I had a very tasty chipotle portobello sandwich.

3. Our season’s final volleyball match fell on the birthday of our captain, who brought the cookies her boss gave her to share with us after our resounding loss.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?